Consuming media presentations generally involves listening to audio information and/or viewing video information such as, for example, radio programs, music, television programs, movies, still images, etc. Media-centric companies such as, for example, advertising companies, broadcasting networks, etc. are often interested in audience behavior, such as the viewing and listening interests of their audience. Measurement of such audience behavior allows the media-centric companies to better allocate their advertising expenditures and better market their products.
Audience measurement of television and/or radio programs has been practiced for many years. Audience measurement devices, installed in statistically selected households, typically collect tuning information (e.g., information indicating the content presented to the audience such as channel information, time of consumption information, program information, etc.) and people information (e.g., information about the demographics of the audience). Such information is gathered, recorded and combined to produce meaningful ratings data.
Tuning information is typically collected by a tuning meter, otherwise known as an active/passive (A/P) meter. The A/P meter collects the tuning data from devices, such as set-top boxes, video game devices, video cassette recorders (VCRs), digital video recorders (DVRs), and digital versatile disk (DVD) players, to name a few. In addition to collecting such tuning data, the A/P meter determines which of the several devices is feeding the television set. Channel and content information, as well as device source information, is sent to a backoffice for analysis. People information is typically collected by a People Meter (PM) such as a Nielsen People Meter provided by Nielsen Media Research. The PM collects various demographic information related to the viewer and the viewer's tuning behavior. Together the A/P meter and the PM collect and send information to enable television ratings to be determined. Such ratings information is useful for various business determinations, including setting the cost of commercial advertising time.
Traditional audience measurement is typically employed by wire-based (fixed) hardware devices. An audio/visual (A/V) device, such as a television, is hard-wired to a media source cable to provide broadcast content to an audience member. Audience measurement devices may be placed on or near the television to detect audio and/or video signals emitted by the television, thereby allowing the devices to determine audience behavior. Data acquired by the audience measurement devices is hardwired to a data collection facility by, for example, a telephone modem or a broadband modem to allow further analysis of the collected data. However, the traditional audience measurement devices do not accommodate audience measurement services when the A/V device is wireless, such as when the audience member(s) is using a wireless television.